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A review by korrick
Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain by Maryanne Wolf
3.0
3.5/5
This is not the kind of book that its chosen hook of a title promised it would be, something that I imagine ticked off folks who don't tend towards science in their reading. It's also not the kind of book that's fully equipped enough to make the sorts of pronouncements about inclusive education, mass inculcation of critical thinking, or digital vs. print that it increasingly waves around like a banner the nearer one gets to the end. In terms of what kind of book it is, there's a chunk of the history of reading worth following, a delving into the intracranial regions that light up during the process of reading in a variety of ways in a variety of languages, and an admirably holistic and humane treatment of the wide spread of variations on the theme of reading commonly encompassed by the term 'dyslexia'. Coming at it from the year 2023 as a librarian whose career path involves valuing eBooks alongside audiobooks alongside ye olde conventional text, I imagine Wolf would be rather thrilled that the worries of Socrates could be mollified without completely 'succumbing' to the digital or giving up her precious paperbacks. The fact of the matter is, though, that reading became the Occidental mainstay it is today in no small part due to how useful it proved to be for spitting out acquiescent factory workers and toeing-the-line white collars from the early 20th century onward, and to raise it on high without acknowledging its use in WASP capitalism will only get one so far in the pursuit of true inclusiveness. All in all, I'm glad to finally have gotten this off of my TBR. I just wish I could have done without the awkwardly pointless name drops, especially of the titular variety.
This is not the kind of book that its chosen hook of a title promised it would be, something that I imagine ticked off folks who don't tend towards science in their reading. It's also not the kind of book that's fully equipped enough to make the sorts of pronouncements about inclusive education, mass inculcation of critical thinking, or digital vs. print that it increasingly waves around like a banner the nearer one gets to the end. In terms of what kind of book it is, there's a chunk of the history of reading worth following, a delving into the intracranial regions that light up during the process of reading in a variety of ways in a variety of languages, and an admirably holistic and humane treatment of the wide spread of variations on the theme of reading commonly encompassed by the term 'dyslexia'. Coming at it from the year 2023 as a librarian whose career path involves valuing eBooks alongside audiobooks alongside ye olde conventional text, I imagine Wolf would be rather thrilled that the worries of Socrates could be mollified without completely 'succumbing' to the digital or giving up her precious paperbacks. The fact of the matter is, though, that reading became the Occidental mainstay it is today in no small part due to how useful it proved to be for spitting out acquiescent factory workers and toeing-the-line white collars from the early 20th century onward, and to raise it on high without acknowledging its use in WASP capitalism will only get one so far in the pursuit of true inclusiveness. All in all, I'm glad to finally have gotten this off of my TBR. I just wish I could have done without the awkwardly pointless name drops, especially of the titular variety.